So where does it belong in World Cup history?

Admittedly, this is where it gets a bit tricky and will probably rankle some.

It was a group stage game. Ronaldo dug into his bag of tricks to draw the early penalty and the late free kick that wound up leading to the tying goal. Spain’s David de Gea had what will probably be remembered as the biggest mistake by a goalkeeper in the 2018 World Cup. It was a group stage game that might not have wound up impacting which teams eventually move on to the knockout round.

In any conversation like this, recency bias and rooting interest/subjectivity usually play a role. For instance, if you’re a fan of the U.S. men’s national team, you might think back fondly on Landon Donovan’s last-gasp winner against Algeria in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. But that was a dog of a matchup until that point and, frankly, it was U.S.-Algeria.

Many objective greatest World Cup game lists might have, in no particular order:

What’s the verdict?

It’s hard to put Spain-Portugal up there with some of those iconic World Cup games in terms of sheer greatness due to the aforementioned factors, but you can’t deny how entertaining the action was on Tuesday. This World Cup will be partially remembered for the Iberian Peninsula showdown regardless of what happens the rest of the tourney. If it would’ve played out in the knockout round, who knows what else might’ve happened in extra time. For my money, it was easily in the top 10 best ever. It had a little bit of everything and didn’t disappoint one bit.

Everybody will have an opinion on where it will go down in history though. Where does it rank for you? Feel free to sound off in the comments section.